Choice - Publications - Faculty & Research

April 2025
Case

Giving Up on a Passion: Elizabeth Rowe at the Boston Symphony Orchestra

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Maisie Wiltshire-Gordon and Alexis Lefort

For 20 years, Elizabeth Rowe was a world-renowned principal flutist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But in 2024, Rowe decided to leave her position to pursue a new full-time career as a leadership coach. At 50, Rowe was well under the typical retirement age, and,... View Details

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25 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Has Occupational Licensing Outlived Its Usefulness?

on consumers, platform managers, and policymakers. Martha Lagace: What piqued your interest in this research? Chiara Farronato: I study market design choices of online platforms from eBay to Airbnb. Online platforms help match many... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Service

17 Jun 2013
Research & Ideas

Advertising Symbiosis: The Key to Viral Videos

Personalities Teixeira discovered the keys to attraction and retention through a series of lab experiments where participants viewed real ads that Teixeira selected from YouTube, while a camera recorded their facial reactions. They had the View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Advertising

03 Dec 2012
HBS Case

HBS Cases: Against the Grain

What should Jim do? The array of ethical choices forms the basis of discussion in the MBA required course Leadership and Corporate Accountability. Supply And Demand "Corruption can be defined as paying for a good or service in... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Food & Beverage

26 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 26

traditional PR work. The (B) case focuses on the choices the firm needs to make about roll-out, including how to measure aspects of consultants' performance, what performance management systems and processes need to support the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 22

and exploration in terms of innovation streams—incremental innovation in existing products as well as architectural and/or discontinuous innovation. Based on in-depth, longitudinal data from 13 business units and 22 innovations, we describe the consequences of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

31 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Why Competition May Not Improve Credit Rating Agencies

to finance ratings. Issuers have no choice but to pay the fee, and are not allowed to choose the rater. By severing the link between issuer and payment, this is supposed to limit potential pressure for favorable ratings. This model has... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

15 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

The Founding CEO’s Dilemma: Stay or Go?

why they are choosing to be founders to begin with, and then to make conscious choices that are consistent with those motivations. The founders who get into trouble are often the ones who make decisions without regard for "Rich... View Details

18 Dec 2012
First Look

First Look: December 18

Case 813-060 Kyruus is used in a course at HBS on Entrepreneurship in Healthcare IT and Services (EHITS). It describes a young company that has built a very large database on physicians. The company has had some early successful pilots with prominent customers, but it... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

17 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 17

content? The Times had several choices in designing the paywall, including determining the digital content, pricing, as well as how to interface with readers of secondary news websites like blogs that posted links to news articles. Should... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

23 May 2017
First Look

First Look at New Ideas and Research: May 23, 2017

points. Pseudo-set framing changes gambling choices (Study 1), effort (Studies 2 and 3), giving behavior (Field Data and Study 4), and purchase decisions (Study 5). These effects persist in the absence of any reward, when a cost must be... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

31 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

The Faculty Reader: Who is Reading What This Summer?

recent book of non-fiction that I believe will be historically important. Both my choices top 700 pages, hence my hesitancy. The first book is Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate. It inevitably appears on the list of greatest war novels of... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Information; Publishing

12 Apr 2011
First Look

First Look: April 12

extremely limited. Theoretically, delegation of authority is expected when locally adapted choices are most important to the overall value of the firm, when local information advantages are significant, or when the cost of processing... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Jan 2010
First Look

First Look: Jan. 26

settings, reflects risk neutrality in choice among low-magnitude mixed gambles. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-056.pdf PublicationsConstructing the International Economy Editors:Rawi Abdelal, Mark Blyth, and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

23 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 23

variety of applications and services that drive the popularity of software. The first principle focuses on enabling choice: firms should allow consumers and partners to have a real choice between complementary products and services from... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 10, 2007

forces in a company's government, legal, and social environment. Purchase this note: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=707469 U.S. Taxation of Foreign-Source Corporate Income Harvard Business School Note 207-085 Identifies several of the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

15 Sep 2003
Lessons from the Classroom

HBS Cases: Developing the Courage to Act

they bring a difficult choice to life: "This new business requires completely different marketing and manufacturing skills, even though the exact same customers will purchase the product. Do you want to set up an independent unit, or... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Garvin

March 2006 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Putnam Investments: Rebuilding the Culture

By: Nitin Nohria and Charles Nichols

Charles "Ed" Haldeman Jr. is promoted CEO of Putnam Investments after the firm was badly damaged by a series of improper trading practices. He is charged with the task of managing the crisis, repairing the company culture, and putting the firm back into a pattern of... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Ethics; Investment Funds; Investment; Leading Change; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Services Industry; United States

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December 2004 (Revised November 2006)
Case

Esrey & LeMay Sprint Options, The

By: Henry B. Reiling and Kevin Wall

Sprint's outside auditor simultaneously provided tax advice--including the recommendation of tax shelters related to Sprint options--to senior Sprint officers. These tax structures were called into question amid circumstances that raise a variety of conflicting issues... View Details

Keywords: Taxation; Conflict of Interests; Governing and Advisory Boards; Decision Choices and Conditions; Personal Development and Career; Telecommunications Industry

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Educators

June 1990 (Revised October 1991)
Case

Lake Pleasant Bodies Case (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

Presents a classic dilemma in legal ethics--the conflict between an attorney's obligations as an attorney, in this case to protect a client's confidentiality, and his or her own moral obligations as a person. An attorney must decide how to respond to the father of a... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Moral Sensibility; Questionnaires; Attorney and Client Relationships; Social Psychology; Conflict Management; Legal Services Industry

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